1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to liquid aqueous cleaning preparations for hard surfaces, and more particularly to such preparations for use in the home and in institutions which provide thorough cleaning and antistatic properties to surfaces which tend to develop static charges without leaving behind any visible residues.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Cleaning preparations based on surfactants with or without the addition of builders are normally used for cleaning hard surfaces both in the home and in institutions. It is known that natural or synthetic polymers may be added to such cleaning preparations to enhance their cleaning power. Thus, German Patent Applications Nos. 28 40 463 and 28 40 464 describe the use of high molecular weight polyethylene glycols, and German Patent Application No. 29 13 049 describes the use of polyvinyl alcohols, polyvinyl pyrrolidones, cellulose ethers, polysaccharides, proteins and polyacrylamides as cleaning enhancers.
According to Great Britain Patent Specification No. 1,073,947, polyacrylamides inter alia improve the soil suspending power of liquid cleaning preparations for hard and irregular-shaped surfaces.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,696,043 describes polymers of aromatic monovinyl monomers with unsaturated dicarboxylic acids, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,508,635 describes the same class of compounds, but in partially esterified form, for improving the visual residue behavior of the cleaned surfaces and for avoiding the coating by glass of remaining water vapor.
Finally, British Patent Specification No. 2,104,091 describes liquid cleaning preparations which, together with standard anionic, nonionic, cationic or amphoteric surfactants, contain an addition of an amphoteric polymer compound prepared by polymerization of a cationic vinyl monomer with an anionic vinyl monomer. This addition, which is used in small amounts compared with the surfactant, brings about an improvement in detergency.
Unfortunately, none of these known liquid cleaning preparations is able to prevent freshly cleaned plastics material from attracting dust particles from the air and thus appearing as if it has not been cleaned.
Therefore, with the increasing number of plastics surfaces in the home, it would make cleaning very much easier and more efficient if those surfaces could be antistatically finished during cleaning. It would also be of value to the consumer if one and the same cleaning preparation could be used for a wide range of applications to enable optimal effects to be obtained both on hydrophobic surfaces, i.e., antistatic effects, and also on hydrophilic surfaces, i.e., anti-coating effects.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide cleaning preparations which are suitable for cleaning all washable hard surfaces in the home and in institutions and which at the same time bring about both thorough cleaning and antistatic finishing of surfaces which tend to develop static charges, and also anti-coating effects on mirrors without leaving behind any visible residues in the form of streaks, patches or the like on the treated surfaces. With prior art polymers and their end-use formulations, it is not possible to satisfy all the above-mentioned requirements with one and the same cleaning preparation.